Viewpoints: The Health Care Debate

The Kaiser Family Foundation has launched a new series, “Viewpoints: The Health Care Debate,” featuring interviews with leaders of organizations active in the public policy debate over health care.

The National Association of Manufacturers’ John Engler provides the manufacturing perspective in his interview with the foundation’s Jackie Judd. To frame the issue, he says:

The number one issue I think is they want to take care of employees who need to be protected in the event of a health emergency or if something is going on at home, that employee is going to be distracted from his or her job. Ao I think they want to be able to preserve this as a cornerstone benefit of an employment contract with someone and that means they need to be able to afford it.

A good discussion follows on health IT, health savings accounts, government programs like Medicaid and the politics of health care. A transcript is here.

Others interviewed the series, with transcripts, video and or audio are:

Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a national non-profit that advocates for affordable, high quality health care.

Ray Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association.

Dr. Mohammad Akhter, executive director of the National Medical Association, which represents African American physicians.

Also on the series’ home page are materials about the presidential candidates’ health care platforms, the daily news updates, etc. Kaisernetwork.org is a great resource we use a lot around here.